Acee: Pro athletes taking advantage of California law

The millionaires are looking for some extra scratch, and the billionaires are trying to avert their responsibility.

That is way too simplistic, even if it does make for a sexy summation of the latest issue to come betwixt the owners of professional teams and their principal employees, the men who play the games we watch.

This latest battle is about to be played out in California, where legislation is pending that would make it more difficult for the majority of professional athletes to get workers’ compensation for injuries suffered while playing.

The matter is so bigger than sports.

It’s about liberal California laws that allow professional athletes who did not play for one of the dozen California professional sports teams to file a workers’ comp claim provided they played at least one game in the state.

Some things about this should upset us more than the fact that someone who chose to engage in a vocation where health issues are a virtual certainty now wants help paying for his health problems. (Unlike, say, a mine worker who perhaps couldn’t find any other employment, no one could be characterized as “settling” for a job as a professional athlete.)

What is most troubling is that we already pay enough for insurance. And professional athletes winning big awards contributes to premiums rising ever higher.

Additionally, when those premiums are higher for the owners of teams, they need to find a way to offset yet another cost, which means a more expensive product for the fan.

See, so much of this legal gobbledygook can be boiled down to its base line: feuds between those with more money than most of us will end up costing most of us more money.

A Los Angeles Times article over the weekend described several instances of players who made a good amount of money in their careers playing for teams outside the state and were subsequently awarded six-figure workers comp claims in California – in addition to claims collected in the states where they played.

One example given in the Times article was Terrell Davis, who grew up in San Diego but played his entire seven-year career for the Denver Broncos and played just nine NFL games in California. Davis’ record-breaking career was cut short by chronic knee problems. In 2011, Davis was awarded $199,000 by a workers’ compensation court.

The Times reports that three-quarters of a billion dollars has been paid in California to approximately 4,500 professional athletes over the past 30-odd years.

It would be too easy to lash out at the millionaire athletes and say they are bilking the system.

To do so overlooks the fact that the majority of professional athletes don’t make millions. It also ignores the reality that these guys retire in their 20s or 30s with a long time yet to live (and pay medical bills that for many never stop). Davis, for instance, is likely looking at knee replacement surgery down the line.

It also fails to recognize that professional athletes pay taxes in all the states in which they play, and every one of us know California is not shy about what it shaves off its workers’ wages.